Games Become Bolder as One Grows Older
by justrandome
Summary: Retelling of episode 16 from Selina's perspective.


**A/N: So before last episode I thought episode 15 was my favorite batcat scene and that nothing could top that. I was wrong. This is retelling what happened from Selina's perspective because I don't know who was more shook in that car scene, me or her.**

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When Bruce had called Selina and asked for help she had no idea what he got her into. Her alarm bells started to ring when she realized they were headed to GCPD but by then it was too late and besides, she owed him for the jewelry and for… everything else that had happened.

"What do you need my help for anyway?" Selina asked when Bruce parked one of his many cars.

"I told you already, Selina. I need you to sneak and steal a file for me. You are better than me at picking locks." Bruce's eyes were glassed as he looked at her in a way that Selina knew he was not really seeing her. Instead he was fully focused on his mission. "Are you coming or not?"

He was out of the car looking before he finished his sentence and looked at her impatiently.

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Just calm down, Bruce." Selina said getting up and rolling her eyes. Bruce had parked near the main entrance, far enough so they wouldn't stick out but close enough so they wouldn't seem suspicious.

Selina always had wondered how easy it was get to the GCPD. You would think there were more guards or cops taking note who came in and out but to be fair tonight the force was spreading thin. Selina had heard of the big escape from Arkham. Valeska, Tetch and Crane were some of the inmates that had slipped away. Not her problem but she should keep her eyes open so no lunatic could get a jump on her.

"You said you needed help but you didn't say…" Selina swallowed her frustration. "…anything about walking straight into the GCPD."

Bruce just looked at her with his intense eyes. In moments like these Selina missed the time when he was easily scared by her.

"You want to bail out now?" He said simply already moving away leaving Selina no other choice than to follow him.

"No! I just wanna make sure there is no jewelry debt." She said walking closely behind him.

"There's no debt. I helped to get the jewelry back because I wanna help." Bruce said focusing on their target. They both wanted in and out quickly without raising any suspicions. Bruce being here could be easily explained but Selina was another story entirely.

Selina frowned. "Nobody does anything just to help." Not in Gotham at least.

"Fine. Once this is over there will be nothing left to settle between us." Bruce finally turned to face her. "Can you do it?"

Selina took one look at the lock. It was old, piece of cake for an experienced thief like her. She scoffed and moved so that to an outsider it would look like she was leaning to the door when in reality she was picking the lock. The illusion was broken by how short she was so she had to stand on her toes so she could reach the lock properly.

Bruce kept watching the cops, spying on them to see if any of them noticed what he and Selina were up to.

Picking the lock didn't take long just as Selina had suspected. When she heard a click she knew she had succeeded. "Okay, which file?"

"Jerome Valeska. There will be red Arkham stamp on it." Bruce said still keeping a lookout.

"Jerome Valeska? What do you want with that nut?" Selina was confused.

"He broke out of Arkham tonight." Bruce said as if it that explained everything.

"Yeah, what does that has to do with you?"

"Can you just get the file before someone sees us?" Bruce snapped finally breaking his watch to give Selina a glare.

He had a point but Selina still refused to let her anger go. She glared back at him and entered the room closing the door behind her. She headed to the file cabinet swiftly looking for the letter V.

It took some time since no one seemed to keep any order in this room but Selina finally found at least the right letter praying for that someone hasn't misplaced Valeska's file. Her search was interrupted by Bruce's impatient knocking. It was obvious that he was gesturing her to hurry up. Selina wanted to scoff but settled to just pointing out how she was trying before returning to her search.

"Bruce Wayne?" A female voice asked. "What are you doing here?"

Fuck, Selina thought as she dropped to the ground and slithered out of sight.

"Detective Harper." Bruce sounded alarmed. Selina hoped that he was either good at improvising or had a plan for a situation like this. "Where is Captain Gordon?" His voice changed to demanding. Selina peaked and saw that Bruce had turned detective Harper around so she couldn't see Selina. "I need to see him."

"He is out on an Arkham break. What do you need?" Harper sounded confused by Bruce's odd behavior.

Selina moved back to look for the Valeska file but she accidentally slammed one of the compartments making little too much noise. To her luck, Bruce was there to cover for her.

Just as Harper was about to turn Bruce grabbed her arm and stopped her before she could notice Selina. "I need protection. Last year I captured Jerome Valeska. He has clearly escaped so he can get his revenge on me."

"Okay, I think it's a little bit more than that." Selina guessed that Harper was rolling her eyes. She knew that was what she would have done at least.

"I am very close friends with Captain Gordon." Selina heard Bruce say just as she found the right file. "I'm sure he wants me to be well protected, but if this is the matter of payment." Bruce was taking every advantage of knowing how to behave like a selfish spoiled brat as he took out something that Selina suspected to be his checkbook.

Selina sneaked closer to her only way out. Bruce better had to figure something and fast so Selina could escape with the file.

"Wow wow wow. Put that away." Harper took couple steps away from Bruce making her being couple steps closer to Selina. Bruce and Selina locked eyes. She pointed at the lock messaging that she needed a distraction to get out.

"What do you want? A bribery chart?" Harper continued to be oblivious to what was truly happening.

"I…" Bruce's face changed from angry to soft. "I just… I'm sorry." Bruce started to pretend that he was crying. "I'm just really scared. I know Valeska wants me dead. I just know it."

That seemed to work since Bruce now held Harper's full attention. Selina knew it was now or never.

"Take it easy, Wayne." Harper tried to calm him down as Selina sneaked out. "Alright, you can stay here, you will be perfectly safe."

Selina couldn't cover her amusement over Bruce's act. The door made a sound as it closed but Selina was already gone when Harper turned to look. She knew Bruce would follow her soon and she was right. It didn't take long for him to catch up to her.

"What's wrong?" He asked confused over Selina's amused smile when they exited the building.

"Quite the show you pulled there." She said innocently.

"I had to because certain someone wasn't fast enough." Bruce commented in a teasing tone.

"Hey, you should have seen it. Apparently Gotham's finest don't know the alphabets." Selina answered. She waited for Bruce to unlock the doors and to her surprise Bruce held out the door for her. This caused a light bubbly feeling in Selina's stomach but she reminded herself that there was a good reason why they broke up. Bruce opening one door for her wouldn't change that. So she took the shotgun as she silently argued with herself whether or not she had forgiven Bruce for lying about her mother, or yelling at her in the hospital or being a dick about the knife that Barbara wanted or the thing at the Siren's club. There were million things that Selina should be mad about and she was but somehow her tummy still felt like it was filled with fluttering butterflies.

To her luck, Bruce didn't seem to notice anything unusual. Selina guessed it was because he was so fixated on Valeska. Bruce was surprisingly observant, she had noticed. His main problem was his singlemindedness that kept him from seeing some crucial stuff. Such as Selina's current battle against her own emotions.

Bruce drove them couple blocks away before stopping and studying the Valeska file in peace. Selina read over his shoulder trying to repress the mess that her thoughts currently were. She knew she had to go through them later but now sitting in a car with Bruce was not the damn time.

Valeska's file was full of pretty basic stuff in Selina's opinion. His criminal record and some medical opinions of his condition and how he was brought back to life but what Bruce seemed to be most interested about was his know associates and relatives. Selina saw that Valeska had killed both of his parents. Not really that surprising. And she had to credit the guy for his criminal record that seemed to cover all areas and was a long one even by Gotham's standards What made this even more impressing was how short his run outside the asylum had been.

"Do you know this diner, Zach's?" Bruce asked as he flipped through the file.

"No. Why?" Selina shook her head lightly.

"Look, Valeska's uncle owns it." Bruce glanced at her quickly before returning to his thoughts clearly planning something. "He might know where Jerome would go after escaping."

"Still sounds like a cop's job to me." Selina pointed out.

Bruce was silent for couple seconds before answering looking straight into Selina's eyes. "I could have killed Jerome after he kidnapped me and I didn't. Any harm that he does now I share a part of it. In a way I am responsible of his life now." Bruce looked down returning back to his thoughts.

This was worse than Selina had thought. Way worse.

"I can't just wait to see what the cops will do. I… I have to get him back to Arkham." Bruce added as if to make matters even worse. Finally he looked back at Selina seemingly snapping back to reality.

"What?" He asked confused. Selina wasn't sure what he read from her face but she knew she had to be careful what part of the inner turmoil she felt she could show to him.

Finally she chose her usual bring him back to earth tactic. In the past it had proven to be most effective. "Your ego Bruce. It's huge."

Whatever Bruce had expected, it was not this. "What?"

"Not everything is your fault or your responsibility. Get over yourself." Selina tried. "Make your little easier to be around." She noticed that she was coming off little too strong so she sunk back to her seat praying for him to listen and ignore her blunt words to get the message. She realized she had been too harsh but by now Bruce should be used to it. Being nice to people had never been Selina's strongpoint.

Bruce's face softened as he looked at Selina. Maybe she succeeded. She raised an eyebrow at him. Slowly, Bruce leaned closer to her and for a moment Selina forgot all her reasoning why they broke up and should stay that way as she automatically responded leaning in for a kiss.

Instead of meeting his lips Bruce slightly turned his head at the last second and opened the car door for Selina.

She would have lied if she wasn't impressed by that. Mad, annoyed, frustrated, surprised, disappointed but also impressed. He really had grown up in many ways that Selina had not been prepared to deal with.

"Thanks for the advice." Bruce said coolly as if what had happened wasn't completely purposeful attempt to mess with Selina's mind. Selina knew from the look on his face that he knew he had succeeded.

Selina nodded to herself trying to go through what exactly had just happened. As she got out of the car a giddy giggle escaped from her mouth. Before she closed the car door she decided to give one last of a try to talk Bruce out of this. Or at least offer her help. True, she was always out for herself but lately the line between that and Bruce had become blurry. She reasoned that helping Bruce was helping herself truly because Gordon and his butler would be out for her blood if they knew that she didn't help their precious Bruce when she had the chance. This had nothing to do with Bruce himself, she didn't care about his wellbeing. Not at all.

"You sure you don't need my help anymore?" She asked leaning to the door hoping to come off as careless. "We are even?"

"You don't owe me anything, Selina." Bruce said looking at her seriously like he always did. "You never did."

Selina couldn't help but smile as she closed the car door and watched Bruce drive away. She returned her face back to her usual mask to cover whatever was going on in her mind as she walked away. At the moment her mind felt like complete chaos. Her giddy bubbly feeling on what had just happened, her disappointment over what didn't happen, how impressed she was, but nagging all of those were the worry over Bruce. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself that it wouldn't work out, that she had no feelings towards Bruce or that his opinions of her didn't matter and most importantly that she couldn't care less about his wellbeing she could not lie to herself this time even if she tried. Bruce was chasing a level one madman that had tried to kill him twice in the past and who had murdered countless of other people. He was over his head. No matter that he could fight now. No matter how his naivety had been replaced by cold calculating and awareness of the world around him. No matter that he seemed to finally know who he was. All of this didn't matter to Selina. Only thing that mattered was that she could not let him die. Not because Alfred or Gordon would come for her like she had thought earlier but because she couldn't survive in a world where Bruce Wayne didn't exist.

Selina walked on debating to herself. One thing at a time, do not jump to any conclusions, Selina thought. Following her own advice she started slowly untangle her messy mind.

First things first, Selina had to admit that she was clearly still attracted to Bruce and he knew it too. She had hoped that he only believed she was toying with him. Of course she had but under that were her true feelings. She could not shut Bruce off and she could not deny her own feelings either. Not when they seemed to be clear as day. So, why bother?

Selina was also pretty certain that the connection that she felt wasn't one-sided. Many years back when the whole Indian Hill episode happened Bruce had told her he was manipulating her. She corrected him that she was the one who had the other wrapped around their pinky, but now she started to suspect she might have been wrong. Maybe Selina still had Bruce wrapped around her pinky as she once claimed, maybe Bruce had been right all along and he was the one toying with her, perhaps they both were right and now they were locked in a competition trying to see which one would land on top. Maybe this was a revenge for Selina teasingly lingering back at Floyd's place. She knew Bruce was unable to let things go but she doubted he would be that petty. Somehow he seemed too mature for that. They had always played this game. It was just getting bolder as they got older.

Ignoring her growing concern over Bruce's decision to chase after a maniac Selina moved onto less scary things on her mental list. She knew that she couldn't get back together with Bruce even if they both wanted it. She was fairly certain that they both indeed wanted it. But when it came down to it they were too different. Yes, Selina had risen up but in the end she only cared about survival and Bruce insisted he heard a calling. Selina would always be street trash, even if that street trash owned one of Gotham's most popular night clubs. She could not fool herself. She came from poverty and Bruce from old money. Even if she didn't count where they came from there was still the biggest difference that they shared. Selina always saw shades of grey when Bruce could only see in black and white. That seemed to be where all of their problems originated. It would be there even if you stripped away all of their money, history and individual needs in life. Neither one of them didn't want to change their view or understand the other.

If she was completely honest to herself, Selina had to admit that was one of the trades in Bruce that she felt most attracted to. He may be too stubborn to his own good but at least he was fully committed to it. He would not give up no matter what.

Selina angrily kicked a tin can as she hurried through the empty streets. At the beginning she had had a distant idea returning to Siren's but now she knew she wasn't ready to face Barbara and Tabby. If she was completely honest with herself she didn't want to either. Without any real sense of she was going she ended up on an empty side alley with a fire escape where she climbed to sit and think about everything in peace.

She sunk her head to her hands once she had settled comfortably to the metal stairs. The alley she chose was eerily similar to the one where Selina had seen Bruce's parents gunned down all those years ago. It wasn't the same one but it still brought up painful memories. It was the moment that had ultimately led for Selina and Bruce to this game of theirs. She had started it, when asking the then shy young boy if he wanted to kiss her. Originally it was just a cat playing with its prey but she had underestimated Bruce so she had only herself to blame.

Expect, Selina felt regret for kick starting this chain of events. She was embarrassed to admit that she liked this game. Not only her toying with Bruce but Bruce toying with her. He was the first person Selina truly felt a connection with, the first one she wanted to kiss and the first one she had returned to, not just once but over and over again. Maybe tolerating her fear of him leaving her just to be with him was something she could do after all.

But what if Bruce left her. Everyone in her life seemed to do so. Selina's mother, Bridgit, Ivy, in the end the only person she could truly rely on was herself.

But Bruce always came back, a little voice in her head reminded. Every single time. He might be an insufferable ass but he always came back to her. No matter what each of them yelled at the other.

This time Selina wasn't so sure. This time there was a very real possibility that Bruce wouldn't come back. What if Valeska or some of his goons killed him? That was the thing that Selina couldn't face. What if Bruce died?

With that Selina knew what she had to do. It was as if she had known it all along. So she stood up and jumped to the ground. It was too late now to catch up Bruce's car but it wasn't a problem since she knew his destination.

Selina easily found Zack's. She had lied to Bruce earlier hoping that he would give up. That had proven to be useless which wasn't really all that surprising. She hadn't visited that place often but she had heard from the other homeless kids how nasty the owner was if he caught someone stealing food from his trash.

Selina entered silently and found that she had been right. Bruce needed her help. He was fighting against a much larger foe with Valeska standing with a gun and laughing his ass off. Bruce was holding his own but Selina knew from experience how hard it was to defeat a much bigger and stronger person in a fight. Especially when Bruce's only weapon seemed to be a wooden stick.

Selina started with the most dangerous threat. She unleashed her whip and took Valeska's gun away from him. She pulled it to the ground next to her and picked it up carefully. This was her change to end it all.

"Hands off, big boy." Selina commanded. The man saw her holding a gun and let Bruce go. Bruce didn't waste his opportunity and knocked the much larger man unconscious.

"Still don't need my help, Bruce?" Selina asked. The situation was still dangerous but she and Bruce had the upper hand now. Two against one and Selina was the one holding a gun. She wasn't used to guns but knew the basics. She preferred using whips since things often got messy with firearm but she would have been stupid if she navigated Gotham's underworld without knowing her way around a handgun.

Valeska didn't seem worried at all. In fact he looked like Christmas had come early.

"Selina." Bruce said catching his breath and Selina couldn't help but to smile to him.

"Selina, huh? Isn't that a nice name?" Valeska said turning menacingly towards her. She pointed the gun at him ready to shoot.

"Selina." Bruce's voice warned her not to do anything rash. But Valeska stopped him before he could continue.

"Uhuh." He dismissed Bruce with a wave of his hand. "She is not that kind of girl."

Oh boy, had Valeska miscalculated her. She grinned. "Wrong answer, freak."

"Uh, that's fun 'cause…" Valeska dived under a table for cover as Selina shot him. Inexperienced as she was she missed him but was ready to try again.

Valeska was laughing like he was having the time of his life as Selina aimed at him, making sure that this time she wouldn't miss.

That's why she didn't notice Bruce rushing towards her. He moved Selina's gun so she shot the sealing instead of Valeska. Maybe he had miscalculated his own force or it had been his plan all along but as he tried to stop Selina from killing the clown Bruce pushed them both to the ground. It didn't hurt that much since Bruce managed to catch himself before crushing her beneath him.

Her first thought of this change of phase was that this was very inappropriate moment to have in a shootout.

They were both panting, trying to catch their breath, just looking at each other. Selina distantly heard Valeska say something before running away but she really wasn't able to focus on that at the moment. Bruce stayed on top of her, his hands either side of her upper torso bringing back the butterflies that he had caused earlier in the car. But then she remembered how he stopped Selina before she could get rid of Valeska once and for all.

That seemed to knock some sense to Selina. "You should have let me shoot him." She said angrily and pushed Bruce away before the situation escalated. He stood up quickly and his focused moved from her back to Valeska and where he had disappeared.

"It would have been over by now." Selina wasn't sure where her anger was coming from. She didn't particularly care about Valeska or if he lived or died. She knew she had to protect Bruce but she also knew that he pissed her off by the stunt he had just pulled. No matter how her stupid hormones were claiming otherwise.

"Selina, I told you I'm responsible for him." Bruce stood his ground. "I can't just let him be shot, Selina, I can't." His voice was determined.

"I'm not taking responsibility for this mess." She waved around to point out the dead owner and the unconscious man and the overall mess in the diner. "So let's get out of here before the cops show up." She turned to leave fully expecting Bruce to follow her. "Yeah?"

She managed to move ahead couple feet before noticing that Bruce had stayed still.

"C'mon." What was he waiting for?

"It's not over yet." He simply said.

Fuck, Selina let out a deep sigh. Of course he had to be like this. "Suit yourself." She tried keeping a close eye on Bruce's face searching for an opening that she could use to drag him out. She found nothing.

"Just don't take," It broke her heart to continue. "So much responsibility that you get yourself killed." She felt tears forming in her eyes. Selina couldn't let them fall, she had to stay strong.

Hoping for some miracle she looked at Bruce's eyes again but they were dark and determined, hearing her out but not changing his mind. With that Selina left the diner. The tears started falling down as she silently cried over her realization. Bruce had left her too.


End file.
